Free Beer & Five-Minute Presentations

I come from a techie background and this includes more than my friends and coworkers. My mother, for example, works for a major player in healthcare in developing new technologies for their industry that take advantage of the boom of the social media revolultion. While talking about Search Engine Optimization, Twitter, Facebook, and topic specific social networking sites such as The Healthcare Scoop, she pointed me to an event called Ignite Minneapolis.

Basically, there are several of these events across the nation in which a bar or similar venue offers free beer to participants who listen to anyone who has something to say give a 5 minute presentation on their topic. Anything from How to Buy a New Car and Not Get Screwed to a topic which I am looking forward to watching, "Open Source Software Consolidation: The New Ritalin?" can be presented.

Each presenter gets 20 slides to do their speech, and each slide lasts for exactly 15 seconds. I'm thinking that events like this might actually show some potential for some savvy salespeople to get their message out to an audience without spending a dime. I'm tentatively planning on attending this one myself as it sounds like it could be very interesting.